Origin
by Felicity G. Silvers
Summary: A reference point. The beginning, or source. Part of the If and Only If series.


Welcome back! This is officially the point where you need to have read prior fics to understand what's going on. If you have not, my other story Fractals immediately proceeds this one. This story is part of the If And Only If Series, and is the fifth one in the series.

If this story does leave you a bit confused, have faith; we'll see more of what happened and what's being remembered in the next two fics, and we'll see what is different and what's the same.

Our math lessons! (skip if you don't want some maths)

We have the number tau, which is double pi (roughly) and officially my favourite number. If you have not ever heard about it, I highly recommend googling 'tau manifesto' and watching as all math involving circles melts into something that makes sense.

The other math lesson is topology. Topology is a mathematical field concerned with the study of continuity and connectivity. It is concerned not with the actual shape of things but how they are put together (so squares are like circles in that both are 2d objects that separates stuff into and outside and an inside). Homeomorphism is a major part of topology, meaning basically that two objects can be shaped into each other without cutting or gluing (which creates the case of a doughnut and coffee mug being the same-since a doughnut can be stretched and given a dimple to create the 'mug' part without any actual cutting or gluing of any bits). Topology is wicked cool that way. :)

* * *

**Origin**

_X sub n-plus-one equals x sub n plus _loss.

Dis-din-cophony.

Drowning, ice, _fire_. Blackness and strands of light, perfect spirals and exponential curves, constant drowning notes of tau that whisper sweetness and peace but it all _hurts_.

Poison green eyes open: fire and ice, birth and death, creation and destruction. _Infinity_.

Pain equals the square root of negative one divided by zero, and it tears deep, inescapable. Loss equals… he does not know.

For a moment, a blink, he remembers:

Light hitting a reflective surface at 67 degrees from the southwest, voice D chord rumble, one point two liters consumed, two over seven, just a rather very—

He claws at the fading magic and whorls of light, tears apart sound of tau, reaches, reaches, falls into the floor, and grasps for fading—gone.

Gone.

Loss equals this.

He leans his head back and _wails_.

XXXXXX

His bones throb.

His head aches.

His heart _bleeds_.

XXXXXX

_It is too loud, too busy, too frenetic, but he _must _get them out (x = 4.5, c = 67, mind creating grabbing following the line back to his rooms in Asgard (what is m?!)), throws a knife and hears it land into a Jotun (possibly kin?)(m is irrational, it has to be, where is the right equation for it? not pi, but some variation on it, _think faster_). Out of the corner of his eye he sees lines whirl and shift (probability of being stabbed in the back: 48%, 47%, dropping), twists and vanishes (brain might split (tau? Double pi? Yes no n(imaginary numbers scatter where ice stabs down)ot tau) does split) reappears and gasps._

_Sees golden ratios and hears golden laughter and growls (lines are too slow (slips in the ice (an illusion, it catches their feet))), keeps running for Thor (something topographical), casts for what is the _same _between here and there._

"_Thor!" _

_Thor is grinning, the (this space is like his space, caves are like rooms) dolt._

"_Aye, Brother?" _

"_We need to _go_!" (If one smooths out the edges, this is exactly like his study—two exits, rest all walls) _

"_Listen to him!" Sif calls (she _must _(senseless patternless numbers swirling in the spaces, distracting) be desperate if (focus, these two places _are identical _(mind screams at the pressure of cracking chaos just beneath the surface (his skin is _singing_) as he forces pattern to _snap _into place) _there is nothing different _) she is agreeing with him). _

_He can taste Fandral's blood in his ears, all brilliant and vibrant. Fandral is hurt._

"_To me," he rasps and then there are not words, only forcing, forcing force forceforceforce shriek of numbers and structures _grinding _together, apart, screaming along his nerves (_these are the same_), feels warmth (positive in place of negative (__yes yes yes_ _he _can _bend choas to his whims _yes_)) moves towards the plane of his desk—_

ice fire blood heat bones nothingness and everything pours into his brain patternless numbers exploding outward enforced rules vanishing

_Shattered shards of all he has bent and forced down and aside for that one singular step away rush up to crush those who would walk between them so. _

_(Absolutely not, everything is positives if he just finishes putting his foot down)_

_Rips his mind open a bit more, spreads his own function like a shield around the three—_

things which crawl and laugh and death burning destruction steel towers, glass beneath his feet—

_places his foot down._

_Fire. Fire fire firefirefirefire defenddefenddisappeardisappe ardisappeardestroydisappeard isappeardisgustingfrozenthin gsdisappeardisappeardisappea rdisappeardestroydestroydes—_

_raaaagnaaaarooook_

XXXXXX

_break tear rend breeeeaaaaaak_

_hide._

_disappeardisappear safe safe hide disappear_

_bre—_

XXXXXX

_Snails, Thor, {0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…}, half-dreams under the surface of Mother's eyes, purple, Odin, father? (_prime_), blue, weaving, limit of emotions as L approaches F equals 0, x sub n-plus-one equals _loss

XXXXXX

_They are there, all of them._

_He dies._

_No one does anything._

_They watch him (half-Jotun adopted monster) die._

XXXXXX

The halls of Asgard are silent but for the uneven gasps of its second prince. He rests on the floor where he first fell. He is still but for his shoulders shaking every now and then; tears stain his cheeks, face half-buried in the side of the mattress.

His head is cracked, blood dripping along his face.

His heart _aches_, missing something it did not know it needed, and when he tries to grasp at the memory (_just a rather v—_) it is like trying to clench water in his fist. He does not _know _his own function, not anymore. It has been _changed_ and he does not know how.

Only that his heart _aches_, bleeds, raw, open; that his soul is a weeping wound gone septic.

T no longer equals 'time.'

_He_ no longer equals… Aesir, trickster, prince, not-monster, not-different. Thor did not mean _this_ to happen, did he? Not his Thor, not his not-actually-clever Thor, Thor only wished to distract him when they went (_ice ice burning fire fire destroy disappear monster_) to Jotunheim for some silly sword better left untouched (but Thor _watched _him die). One of the warriors perhaps (but not Fandral)(Sif _would_ wouldn't she), or Odin, Odin who did not stop them, Heimdal who did not See, and it all makes sense _now_ (_why didn't you tell me_)(_monster parents tell their children about at night_)

(He died and _they watched him die _and he suddenly does not know _anything_)

(_x sub n plus _loss, hole in his soul, square root of negative one divided by zero)


End file.
